We are powerful beings. We create with our thoughts. We create with our emotions. Many of us do so unconsciously, but it is happening. We are constantly reacting in our habitually patterned ways (first with thoughts, then with emotions, and eventually with actions). It might seem as though things are just happening to us, but it is not so – everything we are living is our creation.

Today I walked home from my chiropractor visit (shout out to Jeremy Brook of The Life Center!). I chose to enjoy the beautiful day, to move in a way I don’t often, and to on-purpose take the slower mode of transportation so I could enjoy a day of “not rushing around!” I stopped to get a green juice at Mrs. Winston’s along the way. When I pulled out a frequent juicer card from my wallet, the juice lady said, “Wow, this is an old one!” She was right, it had been a few years since I stopped working at a company down the street from there. As I continued my walk along Ocean Park Blvd., slurping my green drink, it dawned on me that I had walked that same path so many times in the past. This recollection made me smile so big, because I realized how different the walk was today from the thousands of times I had done it before. Kind of…

I worked at that company for seven years, and wanted to “just teach yoga” for the last few of them. I recalled that walk five days a week at lunch time, in my mind wishing I was not walking back to a job I didn’t want to do anymore. Then I remembered a “game” I started to play on that walk…I would pretend, act as if or visualize in my mind that I was a full time yoga teacher who was simply between classes/clients, enjoying a green juice and taking a leisurely stroll. It was fun and felt good to think like that, so I did it every time I could remember to!

Today, between classes/clients, while enjoying a leisurely stroll, I realized that I had created this moment many years ago! It was perfect, just as I had visualized it would be and feel! Serendipitously, this is one of the lessons I’m teaching my students in the Your Essential Self 12-week yoga workshop this week. We are powerful. We create with our thoughts, with our emotions, with our imaginations. We have the power to get present, conscious, and to choose what we want to think and feel - and therefore create.

I grew up feeling like food had power over me. I thought I was powerless to the constant calling of food - it haunted me in every waking moment. I wasn’t overweight, but was led to believe I was by my gymnastics coaches. Most of my family was fat, so it was easy to believe I was too. It’s as though I was a fat person stuck in a regular sized body. I feared becoming fat and spent years obsessing about what I would and would not eat; what people would think of me if they saw me eating; how I would get rid of the enemy (food) once ingested. I created a plethora of unhealthy habits as a result. I was depressed, negative and angry – filled with self loathe – and repeated this thought to myself often: “I am (doomed to be) fat and don’t want to be.”

I grew up feeling like food had power over me.

Then I learned that what we think and feel is what we create. I also learned that the universe is a big YES machine – it hears our thoughts as positive statements and says yes to them, manifesting our thoughts from the unseen or astral plane to the seen or physical plane from that perspective. So when I thought "I am fat and don’t want to be fat" the universe simply heard "I am fat" – and said YES I grant you that as you wish!

This was a game changer for me, but I was left with the daunting challenge of relearning how to play this new game - to be selective, positive and purposeful with my thoughts. I created a mantra (many of them, really) that I began to recite to myself a lot. I figured I had years of "I'm fat" and "I'm powerless over food" to counteract, so affirmations became my new obsession!

I am happy, healthy, wealthy, loved and lean.

I'm fit, firm, sexy and strong.

My body is an amazing machine; everything I put in it is used for fuel.

Eating leafy greens makes me feel happy.

When I connect to my essential self, I am powerful and make intuitively wise, healthy choices.

When I connect to my essential self, I am powerful and make intuitively wise, healthy choices!

A year of practice later, my powerlessness and obsession with eating and becoming fat had decreased dramatically. I had retrained my brain, changed my thoughts and therefore behaviors, and had manifested a body in line with my new thoughts – I was fit, firm, lean and strong! The internal transformation I felt was liberating, I felt free and happy and powerful. Wanting to share the tools I used to help others like me find relief from the negativity and self-condemnation of eating issues and body image disorders, I developed a 12-week workshop called Your Essential Self (YES!). I couldn’t be more pleased to see the immensely positive results my students have also had over the past six years that I’ve been teaching YES!